ARTIST NEWS

Never before, in 14 years, have I heard the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra play with the finesse and expressive sophistication displayed Saturday night. The Dvorák Violin Concerto and Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony were performed with a command of structure and shape, and an attention to detail, rarely heard outside the world’s top orchestras—and from few conductors. Something about the performances even seemed to bring out the best in the fine acoustics of Bass Performance Hall—clear, but also warm and spacious.

This was the work of guest conductor Mei-An Chen, in her third Fort Worth appearance. A native of Taiwan with a doctorate in conducting from the University of Michigan, Chen is music director of the Memphis Symphony and the Chicago Sinfonietta.

She’s certainly a flamboyant conductor, and in her last FWSO appearance, in 2012, she heated up climaxes in the Franck D minor Symphony to earsplitting levels. Her flailings in dramatic passages are still distracting, and one wonders if, outside rehearsals, the orchestra really needs such physical dramatizations of tiny nuances.

This time, however, dynamics were carefully scaled. In a day of so much assembly-line music-making, Chen’s gestures yielded music that was always going somewhere, toward goals great and small. Phrases pressed subtly ahead, then subtly relaxed, with just the right room for breath between them. The rise and fall of melody and the rhythms of harmony were warmly shaped.

So loving a performance of the Dvorák made one wonder why it’s not programmed more often. Whiz-kid violinists seem to grow on trees these days, but Benjamin Beilman, a very boyish early 20-something, made an especially strong showing. He supplied a generous but unforced sound, technical ease and sure musicality, and Chen and the orchestra collaborated fastidiously. Mark Houghton’s horn solos were particularly beautiful.

From-the-stage talk is overdone around here, but Chen’s spoken introduction to the Mendelssohn, quoting from the composer’s letters from a Scottish trip and including demonstrations of the symphony’s main themes, was charming and genuinely illuminating.

Continuing a season-long sampling of recent music from many countries, the program opened with a five-minute Saibei Dance by Chinese composer An-Lun Huang, now resident in Toronto. Unabashedly populist, this alternated rousing music with perky, piquant episodes for winds and a songlike theme for violins.

Grateful as one was for such a refreshing, lovingly executed concert, it set in conspicuous relief what we miss in most FWSO concerts. Can we keep Ms. Chen around here?